The Darwin Wars: The Scientific Battle for the Soul of Man (Hardcover)

His Foreward states that "Darwinian explanations" about the world have led to acrimonious scientific debate. The remainder of the book tries to outline those debates and their participants. The tragic story of George Price, a transplanted American who died in London in 1974, demonstrates the issue. Price had reformulated William Hamilton's earlier work on altruism. Nature, it seemed, offered little reward for altruism. The knowledge sent Price first into insanity, then suicide. The Hamilton/Price work brought Richard Dawkins to develop his idea of "the selfish gene." Brown struggles to comprehend Dawkins' idea that strings of molecules "desire" only to replicate. He turns to Dawkins' appearance and antecedents to relieve his confusion. He scorns Dawkins use of metaphor, labelling him "vulgar", then fills
this book with his own. Dawkins becomes the label for thinkers in one side of Brown's Darwin Wars - the "Dawkinsians." Although admitting its weakness, Brown retains the identification throughout.

The Dawkinsians are countered by the allies of Stephen J. Gould - "the pope of paleontology." Brown is clearly in awe of Gould's writing ability and reputation for accuracy. Unfortunately, Brown's veneration shields him from another of Gould's talents - the building of artificial targets for scathing assaults. Brown is more correct in his labelling of "Gouldians," since his quotes of Gould, Lewontin and Rose follow the long-established pattern. Lewontin characterized E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology as "bad science," even in the face of later work supporting it. Brown notes that Gould, Lewontin and Rose stood aligned against the rising science of evolutionary psychology. There's another aspect of Gouldians Brown favours. Brown, an athiest who writes for religious journals [i'm not making this up!], sympathizes
with Gould's "respect" for religions as opposed to Dawkins' argument that "any religion is irrational." Ultimately, when Brown takes an capricious detour later in the book, grants Gould and his "position" acceptable.

The detour is into the realm of philosophy. It's bad enough for a religion writer to attempt to write on science. Brown's excursion into science-cum-philosophy is wholly unwarranted. All the more so when he openly admits his inadequacies. Gould's most incisive critic isn't Dawkins, it's philosopher Daniel C. Dennett. Brown confesses his failure to understand Dennett's "Consciousness Explained," although that excellent book is but thinly related to Brown's theme. The real thrust is Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," which Brown doesn't understand either, but he fails to state that as openly. Brown claims DDI is a "freshly ground axe," instead of a surgically precise instrument eviscerating Gould's misuse of evidence. Because Dennett isn't a biologist, Brown accuses him of a "let's you and him fight" attitude, running from the fray after initiating it. Anyone who has read Dennett will never forgive such a slander. As a counter to Dennett, Brown gambits British philosopher Mary Midgley "in her large, sensible shoes." Besides her footwear, Midgely contributed only "her gift for the eviscerating phrase" to the debate. Her science, even Brown admits, was "confused and ignorant." Perhaps Brown is correct in assigning her to the Gouldian faction.

Brown fails to directly come to grips with the fundamental issue. How did natural selection produce thinking humans, and what, if any, is their role in the universe? After his tour of the biological battleground, he uses a cute chapter title, "How the Meme Raths Outgrabe" to again display his faulty understanding of Dawkins. Brown uses Dawkins' idea of the "meme," a replicable idea, to introduce a discussion of "morality." This was the issue that drove Price to suicide, Brown reminds us. Is the universe benevolent, offering some hope in the face of injustice? Or is it malign, a condition which brings Midgley again forward to declare as "madness." Brown, however, fails to consider the proper alternative - the universe is indifferent. If he'd read Dennett instead of maligning him, Brown might have caught the point.

There's some value in this book in the introduction of some issues and a few of the personalities. If you wish to understand why the Darwin Wars came about, however, you must turn to the sources. A compromise option is Ullica Segerstrale's Defenders of the Truth. Although excellent, its focus is on the American participants, which, thankfully, omits Midgley.

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